In a video posted to Vine , respected author and climate change campaigner Bill McKibben turns for just a second or two to eyeball the person holding the camera, before turning his gaze back to the front of the room. There is no context to the video. Nothing is said. In another video taken in Australia, McKibben is shown speaking to an audience, but the context is again removed. His words are replaced with music. To most people chancing upon the videos, the two clips would seem incongruous and pointless. But the Vine channel belongs to CoreNews.org — a website that is the public facing arm of a new politically-motivated attack on environmentalists and climate change campaigners operated by well connected political advisers and researchers. Lasting only a few seconds, the videos were an attempt to put a shot across the bows of McKibben and his supporters, of which there are...